


ignore your cries and heartache

by eudaimon



Series: Outlaw Bikers [4]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:46:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bravo 2 is a motorcycle club with Nate Fick as reluctant president.  Tattoos having meaning; Brad finds out the significance of some of Nate's when a mystery man rolls into town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ignore your cries and heartache

And I've come here to ignore your cries and heartaches.  
I've come to closely listen to you sing.  
I've come here to insist  
That I leave here with a kiss.  
I've come to say exactly what I mean.  
And I mean so many things. 

 

More than anything, they make do; they find ways to make it work. One afternoon when there’s little work in the garage, they sit together at one of the scarred tables and Nate turns out pages of sketches: great swirls of emotive colour, robots, goddesses, cats curled in on themselves. He picks out the eyes and teeth in silver sharpie. Brad sits with the toe of his boot hooked up onto the seat of Nate’s chair, reading Shakespeare stolen from Nate’s shelf. Inside the front cover, NATE FICK in tiny, neat capitals.

He likes to imagine that they could never be given away by anything so small, but then he watches as Ray bumps Walt with one hip to shift him as he staggers under the weight of stacked crates and he watches as Walt cups the back of Ray’s neck one-handed before he lets him go.

And, yes: it’s a little bit like that.  
 _And hell is empty. And all of the devils are here._

On the table between them, Nate’s cellphone shivers. The number is unrecognised; his wallpaper is a shot of the desert taken a week before when they paused in making out in the dust like teenagers in the shadows of their bikes. The call goes unanswered. Nate draws with the fingers of his left hand shoved into his unruly hair, twisted tight. Nate looks at the pictures and remembers the taste of dust on Nate's lips, the shivering pulse in his throat.

A moment later, the phone in the office trills into life. At the edge of his hearing, Brad’s aware of Poke answering it. Distantly, he sounds pleased, joking, shooting the shit. Nate glances in the direction of the open door but gets distracted by drawing a sketch of Brad, his eyes wide open and black from lid to lid.

“That is the ugliest fucking thing that I have ever seen,” he says and Nate’s grinning, the silver ring at the corner of his lip catching the light, when Poke walks out of the office, shrugging out of his sweatshirt.

“You will never fucking guess who just touched base,” he says and then, without giving Nate time to offer an opinion, he says, “Fucking _Murphy_ , Dawg. How long’s it even been? Motherfucker thinks he’s Mary Poppins or something – coming and going with the fuckin’ wind.”

And Brad doesn’t know who the fuck Murphy he is, but he knows enough to read the look on Nate’s face and that missed call before the one that was answered and some subtle change in the direction of the wind.

*

He arrives the next day with a battered back-pack on one shoulder, ink around his wrists, no cut and hair tumbling as he bends his head to light a cigarette. Poke embraces him like a brother on the threshold.

“It’s been forever, man,” he says.  
The guy blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth and shakes his head.

“Not forever,” he says. “Not quite.”

To Brad Colbert, who’s never been further than the desert in Arizona, his accent sounds lyrical and strange, like something from a movie. He looks, for a long moment, before he realises that he’s being offered a hand.

Irish, Brad thinks. Definitely Irish.

“Jamie Murphy,” he says. His hand shake is firm and warm.

Ray nearly bowls Murphy off his feet with a bear-hug. Next to him, he looks slight and pale, jittery even though Brad knows that he’s been clean for months. He watches the way that Murphy smooths one hand over Ray’s dark hair. A silver skull ring catches the light.

“You come, you go, you never fucking write, you fucking dick,” says Ray.   
But Brad’s just looking at Nate.

Nate’s sitting at the bar, leaning back on his elbows, just quiet, just watching. He’s got his head tilted on one side, hair tumbled across his forehead and his face is perfectly quiet, perfectly still and his eyes are dark and unreadable. In the midst of meeting Walt, Murphy looks up, across the bar, and, for a moment, him and Nate just look at each other.

Which leaves Brad on the outside, shouldering the weight of unfamiliar history.

*

When he was a kid, Brad broke his arm falling off the porch. He used to lie in bed and imagine that, underneath the cast, he could feel the bone knitting, mending. On the day Murphy arrives, he sits at the bar with a shot glass and a bottle in front of him, not drunk, not really. He imagines that he can feel the knot of jealousy in his chest calcifying. Things that have the potential to hurt him become bone.

The lightest touch on the back of his neck.

“Hey,” says Nate.   
“Hey.”

Nate leans his weight against the bar. He’s got his hands balled up in his sweatshirt.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks.  
Brad turns the glass against the bar and tries to figure out what he’s feeling.

“Tell me you’re not still in love with him.”

When Nate leans in and grabs a fistful of his t-shirt, drags him in for a warm, wet kiss on the mouth right there in the bar, Brad’s so startled that his eyes stay wide open. Nate turns away from him and pours a neat shot, knocks it back in one.

“I was never in love with him, Brad,” he says.

*

It’s good liquor, smoky and smooth, and he’s probably drunk more of it than he should have done by the time he hears boots on the bare floor and Murphy slides into the chair opposite him. He’s got a scarf wound once around his neck, that ring, a vest in place of a cut. His wrists are tattooed; a line of graceful script, _his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes._

Brad thinks that he recognises Nate’s work.

Without speaking, he pours himself a fresh shot, pours another and pushes it across the table. Fingertips on the table, Murphy shakes his head.

“Fifteen years sober,” he says, lifting his hair to show a crop of stars tattooed on the side of his neck. “But thank you.”  
“What’s the accent?”  
“East Belfast,” says Murphy. “By way of half the world, and there, and here.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Brad sips his shot but doesn’t knock it back. In his head, he knows that Murphy has been with Nate, that he knows Nate. 

Neither of them are kids; it’s ridiculous to think that they’d have gotten to this point without any history at all. They are the sum of their experiences, and everyone that they’ve known.

For better or worse.

“Those are Nates,” says Brad, gesturing to the tattoos on Murphy’s forearms with his shot-glass. “Aren’t they?”

Murphy looks down at his arm and nods, brushing his thumb along the line of script.

“They are,” he says, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Half for me, half for him.”

“Which part’s which?”

Instinctively, he finds himself liking the man sitting opposite him. There’s a warmth about him, a quiet strength and a poise. He finds that he can see what Nate saw in Murphy. He starts wondering if Murphy was the one who taught Nate what he so obviously knows.

Murphy clears his throat, raises on eyebrow slightly.

“Nate’s heart was racing,” he says. 

He pauses, tilted head, dark hair ruffling across his forehead. He looks up at Brad. “Does he still need help?”

“Help?”

One shoulder rolls in a shrug under the thin stuff of his t-shirt.

“Letting go.”  
Yes. _Yes_.

*

The clubhouse is still and quiet, everyone gone off on their bikes to a meet-up at the desert, bonfire and moonshine and barefoot dancing, so they’ve got the place to themselves when Brad steps in and cups the side of Nate’s face with one hand, pulling him into a slow kiss. Dimly, he’s aware of Murphy moving, walking closer, his boots heavy on the boards. Brad feels the surprise in Nate when Murphy’s hands slide over Nate’s hips. The kiss breaks and Nate just stares at Brad, his back to Murphy’s chest.

“It’s okay,” says Brad, gently. “We’re okay.”

He watches the weight of that leak into Nate’s eyes. Leaning back slightly, he watches Murphy’s broad hand slide against Nate’s belly, catching on his t-shirt, one fingertip tracing against bare skin. He feels Nate’s breath shiver against his lips.

“Really?”

Murphy’s hand is under Nate’s t-shirt now, grazing over his ribs and Brad’s hand slips lower, cupping Nate’s dick through his jeans, squeezing gently.

“Brad tells me this was your idea, Nate,” murmurs Murphy, voice little more than a warm rumble, mouth close to Nate’s ear. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“Bedroom?” asks Brad, eyes on Murphy, but it’s Nate who nods.

*

They undress him between them, peeling him out of worn, soft clothes. Underneath, between tattoos, his skin is pale and smooth.

“You finished them,” says Murphy, trailing his fingers down Nate’s bare arms. Brad watches Nate’s skin shiver into goose bumps. He stands, cradled, naked between them. Brad leans in and takes a slow, sweet kiss, sucking on Nate’s bottom lip. He’s very aware of how close Murphy is, of the scent of him and the warmth of his skin, his hands on Nate, holding Nate by the biceps. He imagines the throb of Murphy’s heart pressed against Nate’s spine.

“Why don’t you get on your knees?” he hears Murphy say, his thumbs stroking against Nate’s ink-stained skin. 

It shouldn’t be surprising (isn’t surprising) how easily Nate slides down onto his knees. His fingers hook over the waistband of Brad’s jeans and he leans in, presses a kiss against denim, right against Brad’s hard-on, mouths him over his jeans. Murphy’s fingers combed through Nate’s hair. Brad’s knuckles brushed the back of his hand.

It was slow, but not hesitant when Murphy leaned in and cradled the back of Brad’s neck, grazing a kiss against his mouth.   
It’s the last thing that Brad’s expecting – it makes perfect sense.   
The tips of their tongues touch. Nate pulls Brad’s jeans open without a word.

Nate sucks cock like he’s hungry for it, like he really loves having Brad in his mouth, his hands on Brad’s ass, squeezing. Brad pushes his fingers into Nate’s hair and holds his head, feels the shape of his skull against his palms and watches as Murphy undresses. He peels himself out of vest and t-shirt first. On his chest, there’s a large tattoo of a crow, wings folded, head cocked to one side. Brad finds himself staring at it as Murphy sits down on the bed and bends from the waist to unlace his boots. Nate pulls back, his fingers sliding over skin wet from his mouth, fisting Brad’s dick as he bends his head and sucks lightly on his balls. Brad groans softly, his head falling back. His fingers tighten in Nate’s hair.

“I bet Brad would like to come in your mouth, Nate.”

Nate glances back over his shoulder and he’s grinning as he rubs his thumb over the head of Brad’s dick before his mouth is sliding back down, sucking Brad in warm, firm strokes.

It comes on so fast that Brad doesn’t even have time for a warning. His fingers tighten in Nate’s hair. Maybe he trembles. He’s intensely aware of Murphy’s eyes on him.

Naked, Nate sits back on his heels, his lips damp and pink, eyes on Brad’s face as, slowly, he raises his arms and claps his hands behind his head. 

Behind him, Murphy gives a low, rich chuckle in the back of his throat.

“That’s a good memory you’ve got there, Nate.”

It’s nice to finally have an answer to a long-asked question.

While Nate watches, naked on his knees, his dick hard and damp and flushed, Murphy and Brad finish the job of undressing. Bare-foot, his jeans riding low on tanned hips, Murphy eases Brad out of his t-shirt. There’s a scar high on Murphy’s chest, white, and Brad traces it with his thumb. There’s another, tucked under his jaw, thinner, and when Brad touches him there, Murphy doesn’t flinch away but Brad sees something different in his eyes.

He kisses him instead of asking the question.  
He’s got no desire for anything to be rhetorical here.

*

With all three of them naked, they blindfold Nate with Murphy’s scarf. He kneels on the bed on all fours, head down, knees apart. They both touch him. Murphy sits at his head, brushes his hair back, traces the seam of his lips with thumb. Nate parts his lips and licks along Murphy’s fingers and, when Brad bends, spreads him and swipes his tongue against Nate’s asshole, he hears Nate moan. With the gag that they’ve gotten used to using, it’s not something that he’s entirely used to, hearing Nate that clearly, and he feels it right behind his dick. For a few long moments, nobody says anything; there’s just the liquid sound of his mouth, the breathy moans spilling out of Nate, muffled by the push of Murphy’s fingers past his lips. Brad curls his fingers around his dick, already on its way to hard again. He fists it, squeezes it, tries to find his centre because there’s so much that he wants here. He replaces his mouth with slick fingers, works lube deep into Nate’s ass, spreads him and stretches him, crooks his fingers until he makes Nate shake with it.

“You want to suck my cock, Nate?” asks Murphy, his voice low, his eyes fixed on Brad along the ley-line of Nate’s spine as Brad presses a third finger into Nate’s ass. It feels like he’s holding his breath.

Bending to slide his mouth down over Murphy’s dick puts Nate’s ass higher and Brad presses a kiss against Nate’s tailbone before he’s dragging his fingers free. Breathless and aching, already, he rolls a condom on and pushes up onto his knees, presses in behind Nate, head of his dick rubbing against Nate’s asshole for a moment before he’s sliding inside, hard enough to push Nate forward onto the dick in his mouth, both hands on Nate’s hips, and Nate trembles. For a moment, they’re all still, giving Nate a moment to adjust, and Brad reaches out and brushes his fingers against the knot at the back of Nate’s head and Murphy’s fingers brush his and then, as though by some contract or understanding, they both begin to move, falling into rhythm, both of them fucking Nate.

Both of them loving him, too.  
Brad had never understood anything so clearly. The realisation makes him dizzy.

Sometimes, it feels like they’re always rushing, getting everything done quickly before somebody comes back, before there’s a risk of being caught. Now, he takes his time, screwing Nate slowly, hard enough to rock him forward on hands and knees. Murphy’s head rolls back on his neck and Brad sees that scar again, thin and white. His hands tighten on Nate’s hips, pulling him back harder onto his dick.

And he can’t look at Murphy, right at the end, because it’s all about Nate. It’s always been about Nate.

Nate makes this noise when he comes, his head cradled against Murphy’s tattooed chest and it doesn’t occur to Brad until later, but Nate must have swallowed Murphy’s come straight down and, when he does think about it, he feels it warm and tight and right in his balls and the pit of his belly.

They lie together, Nate’s head cradled on Brad’s chest. Murphy doesn’t stay. He leans in, kisses both of them on the lips and then he’s rolling out of the bed, pulling on his jeans without underwear, his vest without a shirt.

“You could stay,” says Nate and Brad nods, the curl of his hand a perfect fit around the bone of Nate’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to go.”

Murphy grins, shouldering the rest of his clothes.

“Rest of those fuckers will be back soon,” he says, leaning his hip against the doorframe. “Figure you could use someone to run interference. “ He sketches them a bow, hair falling into his eyes for a moment. “Sleep, sweethearts. Enjoy the quiet, for a while.”

The door closes quietly behind him and they don’t say anything. Nate turns his head and presses a kiss to Brad’s chest.

“How many of his tattoos did you do?” asks Brad, finally.  
“The crow,” says Nate. “And the quote of his arm.”

Against him, Brad can feel the slowing beat of Nate’s heart, no longing racing anywhere but in memory.

“It sounds like it matters to him,” says Brad, knowing that it would matter to him too, that it _does_ matter to him, in ways that he’s not quite figured out yet.

“I matter to him; he matters to me,” says Nate. He half sits up, pushes his hair back from his face, turns his arm towards Brad, the one with Skadi in the sleeve, the one for his mom.

“See this?” he asks, fingertip tracing a sketchy black heart, worked into the design. Brad nods and reaches out, pressing his thumb against it.

Nate has this strange, sweet smile on his face.

“That’s him,” he says. “That’s Murphy.”  
And what Brad realises in that moment is this: that it is possible to be in love more than once in life and more than once an hour and more than once a moment and still have a heart that’s completely and utterly true.

He pulls Nate down to him.  
He can already feel himself starting to lean towards sated, dreamless sleep.


End file.
